Most new users of the internet in poor countries will be connecting to it via mobile phones. So, according to an intriguing piece by David Talbot in the MIT Technology Review, “Facebook and Google are … persuading wireless carriers in poor countries to offer customers free or very cheap online access that is limited to stripped-down versions of the web giants’ sites. The idea is that once these new users get some experience in a walled garden of Facebook or Google, they will want more internet access and pay for it, making the carriers’ initial investment worthwhile.”

It’s a smart strategy, and it will have one predictable outcome, namely, that many new users of the internet from poor countries will think that Facebook (or Google) is the Internet. This would be a particularly pernicious outcome for those who find themselves inside Facebook’s walled garden, because it’s much more comprehensively fenced than anything yet constructed by Google.

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